HOW GREEN CAN YOU GO?
The effect we have on the planet, and its people, is on everybody’s minds, but how can we all be more eco-conscious in our daily lives? We set four writers a sustainability challenge, from going ultra-vegan (no avocados!) to giving up plastic…
From giving up plastic to going ultra-vegan, we set four writers the challenge of leading a more sustainable life
the ZERO-WASTE CHALLENGE David Attenborough showed us the effects of plastic consumption. Can ROSAMUND URWIN go waste-free for a week?
Before this experiment, I assumed I was pretty green: a cycling, save-the-rhino-spouting, train-over-plane woman with probably a solid B-minus in earth love. My parents, closet hippies, had instilled in me the need to care for the planet from a young age. They never put me or my siblings in disposable nappies. As soon as we were old enough, we were inculcated in the complex art of Urwin family recycling, a system with so many rules and sub-clauses (food waste is not the same as leftovers for the compost heap, obviously) that no outsider will ever truly understand it.
Yet there is one element that has been troubling my conscience all this time: my nonrecyclable rubbish. Think for a minute about how much garbage you create each week and where that goes – into Mother Earth, via landfill sites, illegal dumps or into the sea. Only 44 per cent of rubbish is recycled, according to the National Audit Office (NAO) – which means that, every year, British households throw 22m tons of waste into the bin*. If we ever as a species leave this planet, I am quite sure the third rock from the sun – which we were handed with beautiful beaches, oceans and mountains – will be left as one giant bin.
Avoiding all non-recyclable waste is tough, though. Packaging became the bane of my life – everything from cosmetics to food comes in layers of plastic. Easy to ignore – until you can’t. The NAO estimates that 11m tons of packaging is used by UK households and businesses each year, and only 64 per cent is recycled*. Plastic is everywhere – by 2O5O there may be more plastic in the sea than fish, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the World Economic Forum**.
Most of the food in my local supermarket came wrapped in it, so I took my own boxes and headed to the Sunday food market in my local park. Apart from a few bruised bananas and the hit to my wallet, this was a triumph. The apple cores went on the compost heap, the fish skin to my doggy dustbins. But avoiding waste heavily restricted what I could eat. I ended up bringing my own lunch to work, leading to the inevitable pesto spillage in my much-treasured cornflower Miu Miu handbag. And even when you’re trying desperately to avoid creating rubbish, it arrives at your door in the form of unrecyclable junk mail. I took some satisfaction in returning that to sender.
What I panicked about most ahead of this challenge were my contact lenses. I wear daily disposables and because I have suffered from dry eyes, I can’t go back to monthlies. So every time I wear a pair, I chuck away those two little plastic cases, imagining that in hundreds of years’ time, archaeologist robots will dig them out of the ground and make bewildered guesses about what they could be. And worse, a recent study in the US** found that flushing the lenses down the loo (as I used to do) was contributing to microplastics in the ocean.
Luckily, the great joy of the internet is it shows you that anything you have ever panicked about, someone else has panicked about, too. And the great joy of capitalism is that someone out there will have found a way to make money out of your panic. So I have ordered a Zero Waste Box from TerraCycle – you simply send your specialist rubbish back to them and the contents will be safely recycled. In a similar way, but with clothing, Oxfam is exploring ways to make new clothes from old, working with Worn Again Technologies to recycle synthetic items of clothing such as fleecy onesies (a popular Oxfam donation).
It has been so difficult to avoid waste that I feel we need to lobby retailers to change – it can’t just come down to the individual. Companies have thrown a plastic veil over our possessions – it’s time we forced them to shed it.
the PLANET-FRIENDLY DINING DILEMMA How can you eat without destroying the planet? SAM DISS investigates
My diet is erratic: health kick one week, burger every night the next; pepperoni pizza is a recurring motif. Sustainable? Nope. Like many people, the sneaking feeling that I should be eating better – not for my health but for the planet – has become impossible to ignore. Last summer’s heatwave was the final straw; climate change seemed more real than ever before.
So how to eat if you want to avoid global apocalypse? The most obvious step is to cut out meat – and all animal products, for that matter. Damningly, it’s estimated that meat and dairy use 83 per cent of farmland and produce 6O per cent of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions† – and there are now an estimated 3.5 million vegans in Britain††, up from half a million in 2O16.
But is it enough? ‘Going vegan is a great way to start your journey of mindfulness,’ says vegan activist Jay Brave, ‘but it can be problematic if animal products are replaced with exotic, plastic-wrapped, plant-based ingredients from far-flung reaches of the world.’ In short: many plant-based meals – anything using avocados, exotic vegetables, imported nuts – have a bigger carbon footprint than Richard Branson. I’ve never been a fan of changing routines, but I knew I needed to dive into the dietary deep for this challenge. So for one week, I adopted what I began to call an ‘ultra-vegan’ regime. I won’t lie – it was tough. For my first lunch I bought a delicious Sri Lankan dhal with curly kale and sambal (sans fish paste) for a fiver from Pavillion, a cafe in east London’s Broadway Market. Chickpeas are generally a sound option: not only do they require less water than many crops, but they actually enrich soil with nitrogen, allowing farmers to use less fertilizer. But what if they’re flown over from another continent? As I was leaving, I plucked up the courage to ask if my food was locally sourced but, unfortunately, they looked confused and said, ‘It’s... Sri Lankan?’ Clearly I was going to have to get used to asking for the entire history of my meal before buying it.
Over time, however, I got into the swing of things. The website eatlowcarbon.org is full of information on what constitutes a planet-friendly meal. Three-bean soup and homemade chips: good. Anything involving seasonal veg: good. Tofu stir-fry: not so good. I found myself making unexpected changes – swapping almond milk for oat, for instance (it takes five litres of water to grow one almond). As for my beloved avocado toast? It was abandoned when I realised avocados are even thirstier than almonds. So that left more oats, in the form of porridge. In fact oats became something of a theme – eating out at a local restaurant, I ordered a vegan tagliatelle carbonara made with oat milk-based sauce. A bit weird at first, but I really came around to it, even though it cost £1O.
By the end of the week, I felt exhausted. I’d enjoyed the adventure and it had opened my eyes to more sustainable efforts on menus (I’ll be having the dhal again, for sure), but eating had become a dietary sudoku. And I live in London, where there is a multitude of alternative eating options. If I’d been somewhere more remote, it would have been far more difficult. While it’s great that we all make changes, the only way our food consumption is going to become sustainable is with action from food manufacturers and suppliers.
In the meantime, I am determined to be more mindful of what I consume – and, who knows, perhaps I’ll return to my ultra-vegan ways from time to time. As Jay Brave says, ‘It’s about pivoting your mindset to see it as an adventure rather than an intrepid toe-dip.’
the MUM ON AN ECO MISSION Babies may be small and cute, but are they sustainable? NELL FRIZZELL swears off food pouches, nappies, wet wipes and the rest for five days
Ever since becoming a mother last winter, I’ve held a theory that we could genuinely stop producing new baby things for an entire year – toys, clothes, books, prams, cots, high chairs, the lot – before we came even close to running out. So I have set myself a challenge: one week, no new baby purchases. That means no food pouches, no toys or clothes bought new or on a whim, no wet wipes, no new books, nothing. First stop? Nappies. Three per cent of all household waste in the UK is made up of nappies*, and of the 65 per cent of European plastic waste** currently shipped to places like Vietnam, Malaysia and India, a huge amount of it is nappies. That’s right: we’re dumping thousands of tonnes of plastic-wrapped shit on some of the world’s greatest beauty spots in order to enjoy a disposable, whip-away, dry-arsed life.
Although the Naty nappies I buy online are biodegradable, I have wondered whether even these are an indulgence future generations will look back on as unforgivably as when Don Draper shook his rug of picnic rubbish on to the grass and walked away. So I call my cousin and ask if I can, after all, borrow the BumGenius reusable nappies she’s been saving for when the next tiny tush comes along. They arrive the next day, along with a barely used pack of Napisan to soak away some of the more, ahem, robust stains. Made from bamboo, they are a revelation. As I clamber through a patch of bamboo in the children’s centre garden, my baby tip-toeing across the soil in front of me, a strange thought flits through my mind: he’s wearing bamboo. In fact, it is the only thing standing between him and total, bollock-freezing incontinence.
Where I live in Hackney, there is also a great Real Nappies network where you can pick up a fortnight’s worth of cloth nappies for next to nothing, thanks to its monthly swap shop. People outside London can swap, buy and sell used cloth nappies online (used nappies.co.uk), and there are hundreds of local organisations doing what Real Nappies does. I used cloth nappies when my son was newborn but, if I’m honest, they seem far easier now he can go whole hours without excreting himself. They may leak a bit more than disposable nappies, and I’m still not convinced they can last an entire night, but for during the day – particularly if you’re willing to carry around the odd used nappy (I wrapped mine in compost liners and stuffed them in the bottom of the buggy) – they have come a long way since the terry towelling of my infant bum days.
Being a sustainable parent is, to a huge degree, just a case of being more like a Seventies and Eighties parent: flannels, Tupperware pots of vegetable slump, hand-me-down buggies, finger sandwiches, second-hand-shop dungarees. In this way, I find the whole experience not only easy but also incredibly nostalgic. How well I remember having my extremities scrubbed clean with a warm washcloth after every meal; the thick soups my mum made; the clothes line heaving with drying nappies in the garden. We often think that to do things better we need to invent, innovate, try something new. If my week of no purchases taught me anything, it’s that we need to return to the ways of our mothers and grandmothers. In some cases, arse first.
the SUSTAINABLE SHOPPING REVOLUTION Buy less, but buy better. DAISY MURRAY spends six months shopping sustainably
Last July, after one particularly fraught day in the world of fashion and sustainability, when many of us learnt that fashion houses were burning their surplus stock, I got home only to be confronted by the state of my own bedroom. Lining the floor were six IKEA bags, brimming with ghosted clothes. They’d accumulated, and I’d ignored them, but suddenly I was staring, repulsed, at the shameful evidence of my own unconscious consumerism.
As with most things, I realised that progress – even when you’re talking about saving the world – starts at home. So this is what I resolved to do.
Resolution one: hoard no longer. An initial charityshop cull first saw short shorts and beloved prom dresses out the door. Then came an online selling frenzy. Most of my sales worked like this: after photographing a small batch of garments and accessories in my living room, I popped them up on my Instagram Stories with a brief description and guide price. My followers then sent me direct messages asking questions and, if they wanted, made offers. My initial embarrassment at spamming my followers with clothes rapidly subsided as my following grew and the offers flew in. I sold everything from a Marques’Almeida x Topshop denim T-shirt for £1O to a colleague, to a pair of vintage Dior mules to an internationally known influencer for £1OO, plus everything in between.
Resolution two was to buy better – so I began interrogating every potential purchase, prioritising vintage and second-hand, searching for ethical brands and investing in longevity. I found a handy way of considering my motive: did I want that Réalisation Par skirt because someone else had it? Not good enough.
Being conscious hasn’t meant I couldn’t buy into trends. As soon as I began to notice chocolate brown was everywhere, for instance, I kept my eyes peeled for vintage versions, only to be rewarded with a Jacquemus silk shirt from his Le Souk line on eBay for a fraction of its original price. Alongside constant eBay and charity-shop trawling, I found a couple of Instagram shops specialising in reselling trend-led pieces – I sourced my bridesmaid’s dress for my sister’s wedding from @Retold_Vintage, and made the occasional splurge on the incredibly curated @TheCeiling.Shop.
I also got creative with rewearing, rejigging and rotating. Noticing ruching was becoming a huge SS19 trend, I unearthed a kilt pin and pulled it through skirts, changing the hemline and upping the likes-per-wear count considerably. Plus sharing a dress size with my mother means the pair of us have been rotating our wardrobes freely, ensuring our closets and our relationship are well tended to.
My successes have been many, my house is more streamlined and my collection of interesting vintage pieces has evolved. I’m proud of the pre-loved garments I’ve bought (a Burberry trench, snake-print boots that would make any cowboy swoon). However, I think it’s important to admit I’ve not been perfect. Two weddings threw me into a head spin. Despite forward planning, I panicked at the last minute and bought high-street dresses. But hey, I’m human and everyone has to start somewhere.
There’s no formula for sustainable shopping; even experts quibble over which fabrics and processes are best. All you can do is try to be better. Whether that means limiting your ASOS orders or swapping clothes with a welldressed mate, start small – you might just find you like it (and dress better because of it).
“THERE’S no FORMULA FOR SUSTAINABLE SHOPPING. all YOU CAN DO IS TRY to BE BETTER”